Karen Gwyer “Free Food / One Men Striper”

19 Aug 2013 — Evelyn Malinowski

Karen Gwyer is an increasingly impressive producer. Her sound – suggestive of motion, in-transit gazes, specific colors yet to be determined, and full of growling composition – keeps getting better and better. Pairing Gwyer's world with that of Opal Tapes, the UK-based bedroom cassette label whose passion for praising contrasts between nature and industrialism has won much recent attention from the new electronica underground, makes sense enough that it can send heads spinning. Gwyer's track may cause the same damage. 

“Free Food / One Men Striper” contains mismatched layers that are complementary to each other. The gleaming background loop with which the track starts never ceases in staring at the listener, into the listener, not likely to loosen its grip. It is unyieldingly determined. Ending with a persuasive, deconstructed melody which sounds like an attitude, the type we have when we're feeling completely footloose and stress-free, ok with being improvisational over the weekend, ensures interest in hearing the song again in order to grasp what has just occurred. It is representative of excusing times when we were caught up in the moment, like looking back on how I used to swim next to a power plant all summer long, never thinking it was problematic until now, and shrugging it off.

"Free Food / One Men Striper" appears on Kiki the Wormhole, out soon on Opal Tapes.